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Saturday, April 16, 2016

“Successful strategic
thinking starts with gaining knowledge, particular gaining adequate knowledge
of the big picture; of all the political and economic forces involved…It’s not
a one-shot deal. Since both Heaven and Earth are always changing, strategic
thinking must always be kept up to date, reassessed and revised.”

For the most part, the strategic picture holds. I suggested
setting aside the traditional ‘two party system’ frame, which obscures far more
than it reveals, and making use of a ‘six party’ model instead. The new
hypothesis, I suggested, had far more explanatory power regarding the events
unfolding before us. Some critics have objected to my use of the term ‘party’
for what are really factional or interest group clusters. The point is taken,
but I would also argue that US major parties in general are not ideological
parties in the European sense, but constantly changing coalitions of these
clusters with no firm commitment to program or discipline. So I will continue
to use ‘parties,’ but with the objection noted.

The ‘six parties’, under two tents, were labeled as the Tea
Party and the Multinationalists under the GOP tent, and the Blue Dogs, the
Third Way New Democrats, the Old New Dealers, and the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, under the Democratic tent. Most of these made at least one Presidential
candidate as their voice—Bernie Sanders for the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, Martin O’Malley for the Old New Dealers, Hillary Clinton for the Third
Way, Jim Webb for the Blue Dogs, Jeb Bush and Mario Rubio for the
Multinationalists, and a mixed bag under Tea Party (The GOP had 17 contenders
starting off, and Hillary nearly hegemonic in the Democrats).

The changes, however, are important. Instead of four under
the Dem tent and two under the GOP tent, we now have three under each. First
and most important for us on the left was the rise of Bernie Sanders, who
showed far more strength than imagined. Second
was the dramatic and unexpected flowering of Trump and rightwing populism on
the right. Both of these, from different directions, challenged, narrowed and
weakened the dominant neoliberal hegemonic bloc, which spanned both the GOP
multinationals and the Third Way Democrats. Here’s a new snapshot of the range
of forces for today, starting from the left side:

The Rainbow Social
Democrats. This is a better description than simply calling it the
Congressional Progressive Caucus. It doesn’t mean each leader active here is in
a social-democrat group. It means the core of the CPC platform is roughly
similar to the left social democrat groupings in Europe, and this is made even more
evident with Bernie’s self-description as a ‘democratic socialist.’ It must be
noted, however, that even though he’s made the term ‘democratic socialist’ more
popular and acceptable, he’s not running on socialism, but on a platform best
described as a common front vs finance capital, war and the right. This is true
of groups like Die Linke (‘The Left’) in Germany as well. This is good, since
it can unite more than a militant minority of actual socialists. Instead it’s a
platform that can also unite a progressive majority around both immediate needs
and structural reforms, including both socialists and non-socialists. For
details, see Bernie’s full platform at BernieSanders.com. Joining with Sanders
in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are PDA leaders such as Rep. Raul
Grijalva of Arizona, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Rep Barbara Lee of
California–all key voices giving the
‘party’ a ‘rainbow’ character.

It needs to be noted, though, that the Congressional Black Caucus, a close
overlapping ally of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has largely gone over
to Hillary and the Third way grouping, with the result of only 3 out of 10
Black voters currently going for Sanders. Sanders does manage to win Latino
voters by larger numbers. For example, all the Latino wards in Chicago on the
Second Super Tuesday went for Sanders, while the Black wards continued to be
dominated by Clinton.

Apart from winning several primaries with a positive, high road approach, this
party is noted for two things: first, the huge, elemental outpourings of young
people, mainly students and the young workers of the distressed ‘precariat’ sector of the
class, in gigantic rallies and ‘Bernie marches’; and second, by an incredible
online fundraising machine, involving some 5 million donors, making small
donations every few weeks or months, that enables the campaign to continue to
thrive without ‘Super PACs’ or other wealthy donors. This points the way for
candidates of the left in the future at all levels.

The Keynesian
Liberal-Labor Bloc. Previously called the Old New Dealers, this is a bit
more accurate as a label. It’s mainly the political action side of the AFL-CIO
and their close allies in civil rights, women’s and retiree groups, and several
related think tanks like Campaign for America’s Future. They are currently fence
sitting, after O’Malley made a bid for their support, but collapsed. Many are
leaning toward Hillary among the leadership of their base organizations, while
many below lean toward Bernie. Expect them to side with Clinton in the end,
since she has been going all out with a ‘united front from above’ approach to
winning them to an alliance with her Third Way party. In similar fashion,
Bernie has taken a ‘united front from below’ approach, aimed at the rank and
file, that has won over the Transit Workers, Nurses, Postal Workers and Nurses
unions, and former leaders of the NAACP like Ben Jealous. Once this party with
its union base does get into motion; however, it has a powerful
get-out-the-vote and educational apparatus. It will face a special problem,
however, in winning workers at the base away from Trump, who are estimated at
as much as 33% of white workers, although some of these workers may also be
more inclined toward Sanders than Clinton.

The Third Way New
Democrats. Formed by the Clintons, with an international assist from Tony
Blair and others, and funded by Wall Street finance capitalists, their founding
idea was to move toward neoliberalism by ‘creating distance’ between themselves
and the traditional Left-Labor-Liberal bloc, the traditional unions and civil
rights groups still connected to the New Deal legacy. Another part of the
‘Third Way’ thinking was to shift the key social base away from the core of the
working class to college-educated suburban voters, but keeping its alliances
with Black and women’s groups still functional.

Thus it tries to temper the harsher neoliberalism of the GOP by ‘triangulating’
with neo-Keynesian policies. But the overall effect is to move Democrats
generally rightward. While this has been Hillary Clinton’s starting point, in
the current campaign she has, piece by piece, adopted some positions, at least
for the sake of campaigning, from both the Liberal-Labor bloc and the Rainbow
Social Democrats to what she espouses in her stump speeches.

In terms of the current relation of forces, counting by delegates, Hillary currently
has a two-to-one advantage over Bernie. The Third Way and allied groupings,
however, are facing serious problems at the base. In many races, GOP turnout is
up, while Democratic turnout is lackluster, save for the Bernie rallies. Part of
this is racialized, with 90% or more Blacks favoring either Clinton or Sanders,
while white workers are split, as just noted, with as much as a third going to
Trump and the GOP.

The Blue Dogs.
This party has collapsed. It presidential candidate, Jim Webb, dropped out
after a few rounds in the debates where he gained little traction. He tried to
combine pro-militarism with an ant-Iraq war stand. He then explored the
prospects of a third party run, but recently held a press conference giving it
up. He also indicated he was leaning toward Trump, which fits in with his
Southern and Appalachian social base among military-industrial workers. The
Blue dogs may return at some point, but we still get ‘six parties’ rather than
five by new developments under the GOP tent, most importantly, the huge
expansion and then division of the Tea Party into two parties.

The GOP
Establishment. This is the name now widely used in the media for what we
previously labeled the Multinationalists. It’s mainly the upper crust and
neoliberal business elites that have owned and run the GOP for years, allied
with the smaller groups of NeoCons on foreign policy, and opposed by the
anti-global neo-isolationist nationalism in a sector of the GOP base, ie, the
Tea Party. The Establishment also favored a US hegemonist and unilateralist
approach abroad, with many still defending the Bush-Cheney disaster in Iraq. Their
candidates were Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, but when both of these collapsed
under fire from Donald Trump, their voice is now reduced to that of John
Kasich, governor of Ohio. Kasich presents himself as a pragmatic, pro-worker
neoliberal, a difficult circle to square. Previously dominant in the GOP, the
Establishment forces are now weakened by both sides of the Tea Party split, the
Rightwing Populists under Trump and the Christian Nationalist Theocrats under
Senator Ted Cruz, who are currently both stronger in numbers than the
‘Establishment’ party. They could be pushed out entirely by the time of the
Cleveland convention, and formally split into two.

The Christian
Nationalist Theocrats. This is subset of the former Tea Party made up of
several Christian rightist trends, some simply conservative while others are theocracy-minded
fundamentalists, especially the ‘Dominionist’ sects of which Ted Cruz’s father
is active. They present themselves as the only true, ‘values-centered’
(Biblical) conservatives. They argue against any kind of compromise with the
‘liberal-socialist bloc’, with ranges, in their view, from the GOP’s Mitt
Romney to Bernie Sanders. They are more akin to classic liberalism than
neoliberalism in economic policy, and thus stress abandoning nearly all
regulations, much of the safety net, overturning Roe v. Wade, getting rid of marriage
equality (in the name of ‘religious liberty’) and abolishing the IRS and any
progressive taxation in favor of a single flat tax. Effectively, it amounts to
affirmative action for the better off, and the rise of the rich is supposed to
pull everyone else upwards as well. They do at times argue for neo-isolationism
on some matters, but favor an all-out holy war on ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’
to the point of ‘making the sand glow,’ and stand for ripping up the Obama’s
recent agreements with Iran and Cuba. With Cruz as its leader, they have become
the second most powerful grouping under the GOP tent, and the one with the most
reactionary platform and outlook, even more so than Trump.

The Rightwing
Populists. Starting as still another subset of the Tea Party, this ‘party’
has mushroomed under the self-bankrolled Trump candidacy. Trump, an ‘outlier elite’
in his own right, is now positioned either to win the GOP nomination outright,
or have a plurality of enough militant delegates at the GOP convention that the
nomination will be given to him on the first or second ballots, or as Trump
puts it, ‘there will be riots.’ Given the fact that as many as one-third of the
traditional GOP base is refusing to vote
for Trump, with many willing to vote ‘third party’ if one shapes up, and since
they believe Hilary will defeat Trump anyway, the GOP, at this time, is thus effectively
split into three warring parties.

The core outlook of rightwing populism is ‘producerism’ vs
‘parasitism’. Employed workers, business owners, real estate developers, small
bankers are all ‘producers’ and they oppose parasite groups above and below,
but mainly those of ‘the Other’ below
them—the unemployed (Get a Job! as an epithet), the immigrants, poor people of
color, Muslims, and more. Trump entered politics by declaring Obama to be an
illegal alien and an illegitimate office holder (a parasite above), but quickly
shifted to Mexicans and Muslims and anyone associated with ‘Black Lives
Matter.’

Trump’s favored outlook has deep roots in American history,
from the anti-Indian ethnic cleansing of President Andrew Jackson, to the
nativism of the Know Nothings, to the lynch terror of the KKK, to the
anti-elitism of George Wallace and the Dixiecrats. Internationally, he combines
aggressive jingoism, threats of trade wars, and an isolationist ‘white
nationalism’ aimed at getting others abroad to fight your battles for you.
Trump’s success, however, also contains his weakness: the support
of distressed white workers. At present, they are forming the social basis of
his victories, assuming they will get lush jobs with his ‘Make America Great
Again!’ promises. The problem is, Trump has no programs. He only has hot
buttons he pushes, but when it comes to spelling out an actual program and how
any promise would be implemented and funded, he’s always the artful dodger.
This creates an unstable class contradiction in his operation, one bound to
surface as promises are unfulfilled.

What Does It All Mean?

With this brief descriptive and analytical mapping of the
upper crust of American politics, many things begin to fall in place. The
subaltern groupings in the GOP have risen in revolt against the losses imposed
on them by the neoliberal Establishment of the Romneys and the Bushes.
Ironically, this is ‘the chickens coming home to roost,’ since the GOP Establishment
has encouraged and funded these ‘New Right’ alliances ever since Ronald Reagan’s
and Richard Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’ and its appeal to the base of George
Wallace. But they could never deliver the goods to rightwing workers. They were
still, after all, workers, who saw themselves sinking or stagnating under the
harsh neoliberalism of the right. Now, even though they have rebelled and
flocked to a ‘Great Leader,’ one whose rule would deepen every crisis and
conflict facing the country, they are social dynamite.

On the other hand, the Hillary Clinton candidacy, seeking a
‘continuation’ of the Obama administration, represents, at its core, an
alliance between the ‘Third Way’ and the Keynesian Labor Liberals, while holding
out an olive branch to the Rainbow Social Democrats as energetic but critical
secondary ally. The Sanders campaign, and its allied groupings, the Progressive
Democrats of America and the Working Families Party, are still likely to
soldier on to the convention, doing as much grassroots organizing along the way
as they can. They have few illusions about Clinton’s leftward shift, and are well
aware that campaigning is one thing, while governing is another. So they
continue to press all their issues and policies of a common front vs finance
capital, war and the right, building more and more clout as they go.

This 'big picture’ also reveals much about the current
budget debates, which are shown to be three-sided–the extreme austerity
neoliberalism of all three parties under the GOP tent, , the 'austerity lite’
budget of the Third Way-dominated Senate Democrats, and the left Keynesian,
progressive and social democratic 'Back to Work’ budget of the Rainbow Social
Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The 'Keynesian Labor
Liberals’ remain caught in the middle, often holding decent programs as positions,
but not willing to do much to fight for them, looking for safe ways ‘to go with
the winner’ and accept ‘half a loaf.’

All this shows why and how Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders
would likely be able to pull together a majority electoral coalition. But it
also reveals why either of them might still be thwarted in pulling together an
effective governing coalition in 2017, (assuming they are able to defeat Trump
or Cruz). The far right has grown in strength and virulence, while the
‘regular’ conservative right has grown in intransigence. They still hold the
House and the Senate, though this may change a bit in November, Congress will
still be an obstacle to any Democrat in the White House.

The old Establishment, led by Kasich at this point, is
likely to be out in the cold, unless they shift over to Hillary, which a few
are already talking about. All the parties of the GOP right, especially the
ones on top, need to be crushed in November 2016. Both Clinton and Sanders have
strengths and weaknesses, but Sanders would likely be the stronger candidate,
given the historic scandals and anti-worker policies of the Clintons. Trump has
already warned that he will use every piece of mud he can find to sling in her
direction.
Finally, there is the one major positive factor that was
barely conceivable only two years ago: the dramatic youth insurgency behind the
only socialist in Congress. No longer on the margins, Sanders has both widened
the legitimacy of socialism and put anti-finance capital, antiwar and
anti-fascist proposals at the center of the country’s political discussion, and
to audiences of tens of millions. It
didn’t come from nowhere, but can be best seen as a re-emergent Occupy 4.0,
following the original Occupy 1.0 explosion of protest against the Banksters,
to Black Lives Matter and the Fight for 15 insurgencies (2.0), to the Climate
Justice mobilizations (3.0). These are all elemental risings of the
‘precariat,’ the young and stressed out and underemployed and debt-ridden
sector of the working class and the oppressed generally, as a critical force in
society calling on the main force, ‘the 99%,’ to activate itself and enter the
battleground.

In summary, here are a few things to keep in mind. If you decide to intervene in electoral work
to build independent working class grassroots organizations, you don’t go
'inside the Democratic Party’. There’s not much of an 'inside’ there anymore. Most
of what is left are small groups of lawyers, fundraisers and media consultants
clustered tightly around each incumbent. What you do instead is join or work
with one of the two factions/'parties’ that are left of center under its tent. Your aim is to make either of these stronger,
preferably Rainbow Social Democrats. Then to shift the overall balance of
forces, your task is to defeat the Rightwing Populists, the Christian
Nationalist Theocrats and the Establishment GOP while expanding the
Congressional Progressive Caucus. But you want to do this in a way that builds
your organizational clout and influence under the Democratic tent at the
expense of the Third Way. Strategically, we want to build a growing force along
the class and democratic fault lines under that tent until it is stretched to
the ripping point. Even in the short run, the balance of forces need altering
in favor of the left. At present, not a single piece of progressive legislation
is going to get passed without a major shift in this direction, and requires growing
a new counter-hegemonic bloc inside and outside of the Democratic tent, and at
all levels of government.

We have to keep in
mind, however, that 'shifting the balance of forces’ is mainly an indirect and
somewhat ephemeral gain. It does 'open up space’, but for what? Progressive
initiatives matter for sure, but much more is required strategically. We are
interested in pushing the popular front vs.finance capital to its limits, and
within that effort, developing a 21st century socialist bloc. If
that comes to scale in the context of a defeat of the right, the 'Democratic Tent’
is also likely to collapse and implode, given the sharper class contractions
and other fault lines that lie within it, much as the Whigs did in the 19th
Century. That demands an ability to regroup all the progressive forces there
and on the outside into a new 'First Party’ alliance, one that also includes a
militant minority of socialists, which will be able to contend for power.

An old classic formula summing up the strategic thinking of
the united front is appropriate here: 'Unite and develop the progressive
forces, win over the middle forces, isolate and divide the backward forces,
then crush our adversaries one by one.’ In short, we have to have a policy and
set of tactics for each one of these elements, as well as a strategy for dealing
with them overall. Moreover, take note of warning from the futurist Alvin
Toffler: 'If you don’t have a strategy, you’re part of someone else’s
strategy.’ Then finally, as to tactics, ‘wage struggle on just grounds, to our
advantage and with restraint.’

To conclude, we still need to start with a realistic view of
ourselves as an organized socialist left. We are quite small as organizations,
but now we can see we are swimming in a sea of millions open to socialism. What
can we do now? In brief, set up Jacobin
/ In These Times Reading Groups in your living rooms and unite socialists with
them, join or start PDA or WFP chapters everywhere, use organizations and broad
'Third Reconstruction’ alliances and popular rainbow assemblies to build mass
mobilizations and win elections, with both socialists and Rainbow progressives,
starting at the base, focused on city and state governments, and expanding the
Congressional Progressive Caucus. You rarely gain victories at the top that
have not been won and consolidated earlier at the base. Most of all, in order
to form broader and winning coalitions, you need organizations of your own to
form coalitions and alliances WITH! Seize the time and Git ‘er done!

Carl Davidson is a national
co-chair of the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an
activist with Progressive Democrats of America in Western PA’s 12th
CD, and a member of Local 3657 of the United Steel Workers. The views expressed
here are his own.And here is the rest of it.